Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 1001 posts

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#291

Post by liveoneggs »

ec109685 wrote: post #159
pavlov wrote: post #42

I think you underestimate your value to the company. “All I do is copy code from the internal codebase and patch things together until they work” — this is exactly what established tech companies mostly need from their engineers. They want people with enough CS competence to not fuck things up while patching together new solutions from the institutional code soup that everyone knows how to navigate and review. If you…

You didn’t read his whole post. They’re bored. Their value to google is high enough to keep them employed but the job is beneath their capabilities. The failing for google is not providing this person a path to do more or at least understanding their ambition to do more.

BILL Ooh, uh, yeah. I'm going to have to go ahead and sort of disagree with you there. Yeah. Uh, he's been real flaky lately and I'm not sure that he's the caliber person you want for upper management. He's been having some problems with his TPS reports.

BOB PORTER I'll handle this. We feel that the problem isn't with Peter.

BOB SLYDELL Um-um.

BOB PORTER It's that you haven't challenged him enough to get him really motivated.

BOB SLYDELL There it is.

BILL Yeah, I'm not sure about that now.

BOB PORTER All right, Bill. Let me ask you this. How much time each week would you say you deal with these TPS reports?

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#292

Post by ubertoop »

oppositelock wrote: post #268

Quit. I worked at Google for eight years, and fell into a funk, because I picked up new challenges and moved teams, and learned a whole lot, but I also worked on backend infra projects, not shippable features, and you know how well that goes over with the perf review and promo committee. So, I left for a startup. It was trial by fire, because Google does thing the Google way, and everyone else uses other technologies…

You have 20+ years of experience, so what is your title now? You mention you're main tech lead so... VP of engineering? CTO?

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#293

Post by modwest »

samplatt wrote: post #259
halfjoking wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most tech workers in the US aren't at Google or making Silicon Valley wages. HN's description of what it's like to work in tech sounds likes a fantasy world to me. Yes I make more than a European at $100k living in the US midwest... but I have to work hard every single day, in an open office, with my boss sitting in a desk right behind me. Most jobs are still a grind. This guy is probably a high-performer who wonders…

>everyone else is so incompetent because he doesn't try and still looks good I'd argue against the "talent lottery" idea. Over the last 10 years as a software dev I'd argue that the 10x "rockstar" dev certainly exists, but it's almost always a case of situation/environment matching an already-moderately-talented employee extremely well. I've seen a lot of slackers suddenly explode into a powerhouse when given the rig…

EXACTLY. Nailed exactly. Strong individual performance, ime, is a product of the right conditions allowing me to do my best.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#294

Post by Aeolun »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #187
dhuyrv wrote: post #130

You remind me myself a few years ago: a talented, but bored slacker who didn't see any point in investing any energy into that project. Turns out I was right: the project didn't go anywhere after I left and investing any extra time would be a clueless thing to do. So what's changed since then? Have I found meaning in work? No! I've become a professional slacker who knows all these psychological tricks, knows what bod…

This blows my mind that in the US one can make such insane money in tech while still being a slacker and retire early with a dream house bought and paid for while in Europe devs are slaving away through SCRUM powered meat grinders burning themselves out for a 3% salary increase on a pitiful 40-80k/year, no stock options, without any hope of early retirement or owning a decent home without a 30 year loan or financial…

You can fire people in Europe if they are slackers.

Why is this considered a bad thing? I’d suggest that working with capable colleagues is a great joy.

I do agree on the pay though. For some reason the US has ludicrous salaries. Every time I go to a conference in the US I feel like a pauper by comparison.

Especially hurts when talking to a junior engineer you can basically dance circles around that’s paid more than twice as much. But meh, good for them, I think I still prefer universal healthcare, sane leadership, and the knowledge that my CEO is making at most 4 or 5 times as much as me.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#295

Post by ubertoop »

sfblah wrote: post #278
StandardFuture wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a FAANG/Unicorn? Seems like you might be a fairly early employee at a fairly successful private SV company?

Nope, but there was a stock increase that made my initial grant worth way more. There was no magic here. I was hired at a fairly established company, got a decent package and then sat around.

I think you're downplaying something here.

You got hired as a manger, so at the very least, you must have had a pretty prosperous and impressive background as an engineer for some time.

You might be cruising now, but snapshots of one's life are hardly the full story.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#296

Post by Aeolun »

samplatt wrote: post #259
halfjoking wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most tech workers in the US aren't at Google or making Silicon Valley wages. HN's description of what it's like to work in tech sounds likes a fantasy world to me. Yes I make more than a European at $100k living in the US midwest... but I have to work hard every single day, in an open office, with my boss sitting in a desk right behind me. Most jobs are still a grind. This guy is probably a high-performer who wonders…

>everyone else is so incompetent because he doesn't try and still looks good I'd argue against the "talent lottery" idea. Over the last 10 years as a software dev I'd argue that the 10x "rockstar" dev certainly exists, but it's almost always a case of situation/environment matching an already-moderately-talented employee extremely well. I've seen a lot of slackers suddenly explode into a powerhouse when given the rig…

I think 10x engineers do not actually exist, but maybe 0.1x engineers do, and when a 1x engineer is in such an environment they may seem like 10x by comparison.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#297

Post by TrackerFF »

ec109685 wrote: post #159
pavlov wrote: post #42

I think you underestimate your value to the company. “All I do is copy code from the internal codebase and patch things together until they work” — this is exactly what established tech companies mostly need from their engineers. They want people with enough CS competence to not fuck things up while patching together new solutions from the institutional code soup that everyone knows how to navigate and review. If you…

You didn’t read his whole post. They’re bored. Their value to google is high enough to keep them employed but the job is beneath their capabilities. The failing for google is not providing this person a path to do more or at least understanding their ambition to do more.

- Investment Bankers get paid handsomely to reformat power-point slides and pitch decks

- Management Consultants get paid handsomely to clean spreadsheets and make nice charts

- Software Engineers get paid handsomely to copypaste a couple of lines of code here and there.

Lots of these people sacrificed their youth to get into the right school and work.

But still a lot of them are stuck with menial task for years and years.

In the end, you don't get paid because you're so damn smart - you get paid for your time, and the assurance that you won't fk up things.

A lot of the interesting work sadly doesn't come before years down the road, after you've proven yourself, and made it through the promotions.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#298

Post by madhadron »

ajcodez wrote: post #271
jedberg wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This blows my mind that in the US one can make such insane money in tech while still being a slacker and retire early with a dream house bought and paid for Don't feel too bad. As far as I know, only Google and Apple lets you get away with this kind of slacking. Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix certainly don't. Also, SWE out of college definitely aren't making enough to buy much more than a condo. That being said, you…

Facebook hires tons of zero passion 10am-4pm engineers. It might not be deliberate slacking but it’s definitely not hard working.

"Zero passion 10am-4pm" doesn't necessarily describe not working hard. You can only do three to five hours of sustainable deep work a day unless you're a freak of nature. Usually anyone saying they do more just pads it out with breaks on Hacker News or Facebook, or has failed to automate the repetitive work in their job. A focused, organized engineer can pretty well exhaust their sustainable capacity plus do their overhead in 10am-4pm. As for zero passion, why do you need passion? And what does it have to do with not slacking?

Facebook makes you demonstrate your impact to the company twice a year. You would be hard pressed to be a slacker long term there.

The work does appear different because at that scale you spend a lot of time tracing out what's there, figuring out context, and trying to figure out how to make a change without bringing down everything else. If you're used to a small company or a small codebase where you spend most of your time writing new code it seems less productive, but it's mostly just different.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#299

Post by madhadron »

ThrowAwayZuck99 wrote: post #280
ajcodez wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook hires tons of zero passion 10am-4pm engineers. It might not be deliberate slacking but it’s definitely not hard working.

I'm not sure which team you are talking about because many people here in Ads are working 9-9-6.

And many people in ads are certainly not working that schedule, and discourage those around them from doing so since it slows everything down long term.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#300

Post by nfRfqX5n »

ajcodez wrote: post #271
jedberg wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This blows my mind that in the US one can make such insane money in tech while still being a slacker and retire early with a dream house bought and paid for Don't feel too bad. As far as I know, only Google and Apple lets you get away with this kind of slacking. Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix certainly don't. Also, SWE out of college definitely aren't making enough to buy much more than a condo. That being said, you…

Facebook hires tons of zero passion 10am-4pm engineers. It might not be deliberate slacking but it’s definitely not hard working.

what if they're hard working + highly efficient?
Post reply on HN